alt Hacker NewsOn a separate but vaguely related note: if somebody comps all or part of your bill at a restaurant or bar then you should split the difference on the tip.
As a practical example let's say you take a date to your local trendy sushi place. You both get gold-leafed deep fried Wagyu fatback tuna rolls and some Yuzu duck fat-washed 50-year-old whiskey highballs. The final bill is $100 (I'll use round-ish numbers for this example). The bartender comps you 30% because you all are cool and discuss your shared experience bartending or jetskiing or whatever. Ordinarily your tip would have been 20% for a total of $120. In this case your bill is now $70 plus your newly selected gratuity. Take the difference between the original bill with tip and your current bill without tip and divide it in two. This is the floor for your new tip, in this case (120-70)/2 = $25. This is indeed something like a 35% gratuity but they hooked you up and made that custom drink for your charming new beau. As a matter of fact you should round up from this number because they have side work to do and you make pretty decent money as a software engineer/LLM tickler/product sorcerer. Just make it $30 for a nice round hundo.
If you're friends with the manager and they comp your dinner to do you a solid and impress your date then you should tip 50% of what the bill would have been minimum. This is why you should keep cash in your pocket - shake the waiter's hand on your way out and palm it to them. If that's not possible then go to use the restroom and talk to them on your way back so they can run your card through the POS on a blank check to give them said tip.
This is how you do things with class. This is what I wish somebody had explained to me when I was 20 and kinda broke (i.e. eager to save money that I would have spent anyway) before I embarrassed myself by failing to do such. If you are similarly unaware then now you know too :-)
As an addendum this also applies to coffee and pizza places but the numbers become coarser. Buying them the equivalent of a beer at your local dive ($3ish) is customary.
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The way to do it with class would be the manager asks the price of the service, and pays the servers and tenders their due fair wage. The moment you bring money to a bunch of "ifs" surrounding a social interaction, you lost all class. Thinking of tips at all is actively detrimental to what you're trying to accomplish.
> As a practical example let's say you take a date to your local trendy sushi place. You both get gold-leafed deep fried Wagyu fatback tuna rolls
"Practical example"
I've only been given 1 free meal (by the manager). I just gave the entire difference as my tip. I was already going to spend the money, so why not make a random waiter happy.
I've never been comped at any restaurant or bar.
I always thought that was a casino thing (to keep you drinking so that you gamble more) but I've never been to a casino. I live in Canada though, so we might have laws against that sort of thing.
I guess I’m still similarly unaware, because nothing about palming people money on the way out like a magician or doing the restroom trick feels classy over everyone just being super upfront about the bill and tips.
I recently had an entire meal at Chili’s comped by the manager, because I waited an hour for food. I guess their system flagged it, or they just noticed, because I didn’t complain. I was hanging with my grandson.
I tipped on the full amount but we had to get the manager again to figure out how. I was going to Venmo her but the manager just sent the $0.00 bill to the table.
Just pointing out that in your example, the waiter gives themselves a $30 bonus by giving you the option not to pay a tip.
> As a practical example let's say you take a date to your local trendy sushi place. You both get gold-leafed deep fried Wagyu fatback tuna rolls and some Yuzu duck fat-washed 50-year-old whiskey highballs. The final bill is $100
Are you a time traveler from like 1980?
Yeah, this is too much nonsense for me.
If a waiter is comping something in exchange for a higher tip, that's not generosity or goodwill at all, it's a dishonest scam.
I will tip what I want to tip (often 0) without remorse and move on with my life.
Unfortunately this cancerous American system leeched into Canada, but we can still stop it, one $0 tip at a time.
feels like this post was written by a robot trying to act like a cool dude
... So pay your server for ripping off their employer?
I'm really not trying to hate, I think you method is great and I love that you have rationalized it, but as someone whose mostly find this kind of social interactions natural, there's something "funny" about finding the algorithm for it. I never did the math and always naturally landed more or less there.